Beer-related travel, at home and abroad, exploring and indulging my passion for beer.

Tuesday, 9 May 2017

Dark Star Brewing Company

Dark Star are the second largest brewery in Sussex, after Harvey's,
but they have humble beginnings which can be traced back to the Pitfield Brewery in the Shoreditch area of London. Back in the mid-1980’s, Pitfield’s
brewer Rob Jones, developed a porter, which he called Dark Star. The name came
from the title of a track by his favourite rock band, the Grateful Dead; the
legendary laid-back West Coast counter-culture, rockers. In 1987 the beer was
voted Champion Beer of Britain. The beer is still brewed and is now known as Dark
Star Original.

Rob took the recipe with him in 1994, when he moved to the
Evening Star pub in Brighton where, in the pub cellar,
on abrew plant only marginally bigger
than an oversized home-brew kit, the Dark Star Brewing Company was
born. As well as continuing to brew the original porter-style beer, Rob and his
colleaguesdeveloped the characteristic
style of hoppy beers which the company is renowned for today.

In 2001 the brewery relocated to a new purpose-built brewery
at Antsy, near Haywards Heath, and then in 2010, they moved again to their
current home, a 16,000-square-foot unit in the village
of Partridge Green. The new 45
barrel brew-house was officially opened by veteran beer writer Roger Protz, and
straight away led to a fourfold increase in production,

I first visited Dark Star, back in 2011 with my local branch,
West Kent CAMRA, and last Saturdaythe
branch was privileged to visit the brewery again. I of course went along, and
the first thing which struck me was how much the breweryhas expanded since that initial visit. Six
years ago there was a significant amount of empty space, but now virtually
every square foot appears to have been utilised.

Our party of twelve travelled down to Partridge Green by
mini-bus, through the attractive Sussex
countryside. Our journey down from Tunbridge Wells took us first to East
Grinstead, and then across to Turners Hill. From there we
travelled in a south-westerly direction, towards Handcross and then Cowfold,
through what I always describe as “rhododendron country”. Although a non-native
and rather invasive species, these rambling plants which originated in the Himalayas,
have a beauty, which really comes into its own at this time of year.

On arrival, we were ushered into the main brewery where a
table, set out with jugs of several varieties of Dark Star beer, was waiting
for us. We were met by Matt Gayley, who is one of several brewers at Dark Star. After introducing himself, Matt told us to help ourselves to the the beers. He then went on to tell us some of the history of the company, before introducing us to Dark Star’s Head Brewer, Andy Paterson. Carrying on from where Matt had left off, Andy told us all about thebrewery before
showing us round the place. Both our guides were very knowledgeable about the brewing process and also extremely passionate about the brewery and the roles they perform there.

We climbed up on the gantry to view the large,
stainless-steel brewing plant which, despite the Bavaria
name-plates on the four main vessels, was actually built in Hungary.
It is a typical continental-style plant, with a mashing-in vessel and a Lauter
tun. As hop separation is achieved by means of a whirlpool, hop pellets are
used, rather than whole leaf hops. One interesting fact which came out was that
far more hops go in at end of boil, than at the beginning. This is to ensure
those lovely hop aromas remain in the beer without all the volatiles
disappearing up chimney. Some beers are also dry hopped

Dark Star crush their own malt, which comes in palletised in
bulk bags from Simpsons Malt. The company are looking at installing a malt
silo, which will be cheaper in long term and will take up far less space. There
had been talk of a further move, but with these sorts of better space
utilisation, they should be able to stay where they are, although they are
considering moving the beer maturation and storage facility, to one of
neighbouring units on estate.

Another improvement they are looking at is to switch from
the use of dried yeast, which has to be added fresh to every brew, to “wet
slurry” yeast, which can be re-pitched several times. The company have own
laboratory, and also a small, pilot-scale plant which enables them to develop
new beers. At present, Dark Star brew between seven and ten times a week, with
the capability of turning out two brews a day.

We saw the impressive rows of fermentation vessels as well
as the aforementioned maturation area. Dark Star are still primarily a cask-ale
brewer, although they do also package their beer in key-kegs as well as bottles
and can. Most of us bought some bottles from the well-stocked shop at the front
of the brewery.

We also partook further of the generous range of beer supplied,
which included Hophead 3.8%, American Pale Ale 4.7%, Revelation 5.7%, Festival
5.0%, American Brown 5.0%, plus of course Dark Star Original 5.0%. There was
also a special brew in the form of Six Hop Ale; ABV unknown, but as hoppy as
its name suggests. I sampled all the beers, apart from Festival which I am not particularly
keen on, but before people’s imaginations start getting carried away, the
glasses were only third of a pint.

The tour of Dark Star was definitely one of the best brewery
visits I have been on for along time, especially as we had the opportunity to
chat with and ask questions of the head brewer. I would put it on par with the
tours I made a couple of years ago, in the Low Countries, where I visited Rodenbach,
De Mollen and the La Trappe Brewery at Koningshoeven.

If you can’t afford the time for a tour, then
a visit to the brewery shop is also well worth while. Alternatively, Dark Star’s
excellent beers can be purchased on-line.

2 comments:

When we were in Brighton for our trade union conferences, we'd sometimes drink in the Evening Star. One year, my friend Ken Worthington of Wigan CAMRA was charged with presenting an award to the brewer as one of his beers had won Beer of The Festival at the CAMRA Wigan Beer festival a couple of months earlier. It was just fortuitous that Ken was going to Brighton for conference and was able to pass over the award.

Nice pub and nice beer, although it's well over a decade ago now and I can't remember much more than that.

Sadly I’ve only drunk in the Evening Star on a couple of occasions, and the last of those was around 30 years ago. You’ve got one over me there Nev, although looking back, Dark Star would have still been brewing in the pub cellar, at the time of my visit.

ps. Despite its relative proximity to where I live, Brighton is not a town I visit often. It is difficult and expensive to park, and not particularly easy to get to by train; although there is a bus from Tunbridge Wells.

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About Me

Sixty years old (just) and married with one twenty-something son, who shows no sign of wanting to
leave home. My interests are many and varied, and whilst beer (and the
enjoyment of it) obviously features high on the list I also enjoy travelling
(particularly when it involves searching out new beers to try), cycling and
walks in the countryside. I dabble a bit in gardening, which at the moment
primarily involves re-landscaping my garden. My other main interests though are
music, especially 70's rock music, and history. I have been a member of CAMRA
since the mid 1970's and have edited a number of local branch magazines. I have
also had published two, now sadly out of date, guides to Kent
pubs. For six years my wife and I also ran our own successful real-ale
off-licence, which as well as selling cask ale to take away by the pint,
offered one of the best selections of bottled beers in the south east. Prior to
taking on the shop, I was an accomplished home-brewer producing a wide range of
full-mash beers; something I intend to get back into in the not too distant
future.